The Brier has been played in 31 cities across Canada, but not yet in Prince George.

Kingston, Ontario drew to the button, leaving the City of Prince George (St. Catherines, Ontario & Moncton, New Brunswick) on the outside looking in as the host venue for the 2020 Canadian men’s curling championship, which runs February 29th to March 8th.

One can only speculate what separated the Kingston bid from the one that Prince George put forward.

Was it the East’s turn?

Regina had it this year and Brandon has it next year (March 2nd to 10th).

From 2012 to 2019, the Tim Horton’s Brier will be in the West six years out of eight (Saskatoon 2012, Edmonton 2013, Kamloops 2014, Calgary 2015, Ottawa 2016, and St. John’s 2017).

Prince George Bid Chair Glen Mikkelsen also has some other theories for the decision.

“The ticket deposits that Kingston, and that Moncton had as well, were $50 each,” Mikkelsen told.

“We had $20.20 to try and help build the brand and the awareness for it. They also reached out to local businesses and had them make some commitments in advance. Those are just a few things we noticed when we did research on the other bid committees,” said Mikkelsen.

Kingston, which last hosted the Brier in 1957, also has a slightly bigger building than the CN Centre.

The 6,700-seat Leon’s Centre, located at 1 Tragically Hip Way, opened in February 2008.

The venue served as host of the 2013 Scotties Tournament of Hearts.

It is almost hard to believe that it has been 18 years (2000) since Prince George last hosted the Scotties otherwise known as the Canadian women’s curling championship.

Going forward, P.G. should learn from the experience and the 10-grand it cost to put the bid together.

While disappointed today, the City of Prince George should get right back up on its feet and make the next presentation bigger and better, to try to land this prestigious curling event in 2021 or 2022.

“The first step will be to see if Prince George City Council wants to support it to the same level or even more of a financial support that they were committing to. That’s certainly the key component that will help us start the ball rolling again to go for 2021,” stated Mikkelsen.

By the way, Curling Canada and the winning city need to do a better job of keeping the announcement secret.

A story published this week in the Kingston Whig-Standard suggested the winning bid committee had reportedly known for a month that they would host the 2020 Tim Horton’s Brier.

There was no need for cities like Prince George to have been left hanging for that amount of time.

ICYMI: It’s official – Kingston, Ontario will host the 2020 @TimHortons Brier! The excitement in Kingston is contagious with a standing ovation for the official announcement today at the Leon’s Centre.